"I beg leave to repeat it: the French Revolution resembles nothing in history. It is satanic in its essence."
From Christopher Olaf Blum (ed. and trans.), Critics of the Enlightenment: Readings in the French Counter-Revolutionary Tradition (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2003), p. 165.
“Quel fanatisme!” exclama le pharmacien, en se penchant vers le notaire. (Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 2, Chapter 8)
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden--respondió Sancho—no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates. (Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 19)
ὀλιγόστιχα μέν, δυνάμεως δὲ μεστὰ. (Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, Life of Herillus)
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head, Stood for the whole to be imaginèd. (Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8)
Aux meilleurs esprits Que d'erreurs promises! Ni vu ni connu, Le temps d'un sein nu Entre deux chemises! (Paul Valéry, Le Sylphe)
Daß es sich hier um die lange Logik einer ganz bestimmten philosophischen Sensibilität handelt und nicht um ein Durcheinander von hundert beliebigen Paradoxien und Heterodoxien, ich glaube, davon ist auch meinen wohlwollendsten Lesern nichts aufgegangen. (Nietzsche, Letter to Georg Brandes, 8 January 1888)
Et miraris quod paucis placeo cui cum paucis convenit, cui omnia fere aliter videntur ac vulgo, a quo semper quod longissime abest id penitus rectum iter censeo. (Petrarch, Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Book XIX, Letter 7)
For a translation and explanation of these epigraphs, click here.
The original Spanish is:
ReplyDeleteLa guerra de la Vendée es único conflicto político que despierta mi irrestricta simpatía sin inquietar mi razón.
Cf. Joseph de Maistre, On the Pope:
ReplyDelete"I beg leave to repeat it: the French Revolution resembles nothing in history. It is satanic in its essence."
From Christopher Olaf Blum (ed. and trans.), Critics of the Enlightenment: Readings in the French Counter-Revolutionary Tradition (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2003), p. 165.